There's a Reason for Everything
by Won'tforgetcanregret
Summary: Newt is the "mother" of the Glade, the one who tries to take care of everyone. But when he's running the Gathering, it's clear just how much he hates Gally. There's a very good reason for that. There's a reason for everything. (Please review, whether you liked it or not. I want to improve. Just don't be a complete jerk please)
1. Chapter 1

Gally's insane glare shifts to me. He yells, his voice tearing out of his throat, "I know you hate me, that you've always hated me. You should be Banished for your embarrassing inability to lead this group. You're shameful, and any one of you who stays here is no better. Things are going to change. This, I promise."

A red haze fills my vision. How dare he. How can he stand there and say those things to me after what he did? If I weren't the acting leader, if I weren't restraining Minho, I could kill the bloody shuck-face. A vision of my fist slamming into Gally's face tempts me. Because he was the one who had finally broken me, those months ago when I wanted to die.

He leaves. I release Minho, and slump back into my chair. There's a very good reason why I hate Gally so much. It's easy to hate someone when they're responsible for the death of the person you'd cared about most in the bloody screwed up world.

After a little over a year of being in the Maze, back when I was still Keeper of the Runners, we needed a replacement for one of our guys who'd been killed. Poor shank had gotten stuck out in the Maze overnight. The Runner who'd found his body looked haunted for days.

I had been looking at most of the newer Gladers, and there were about six I wanted to test. We examined them on every skill I could think of that they might need: speed and stamina in a series of races, intelligence by seeing how well they could notice patterns, and a few problem solving scenarios we had brainstormed earlier. It sounds pointless, but I was worried. I wanted only the best. I was terrified of sending someone out who wasn't ready, who was gonna get themselves killed.

One of them stood out, a kid with sandy hair and dark brown eyes. He wasn't the fastest, but he was bloody _brilliant_. He deciphered a pattern in less than ten minutes that had taken half an hour to put together. By the time we got to the problem-solving stage, only he and two others had passed everything well enough to move on. We gave them the problem "How much dirt is in a hole 6 and a half feet wide, 8 feet deep, and 5 feet long?" and a two-minute time limit. Within ten seconds, the kid sat back smiling. The other two looked at him, bewildered, and went back to feverishly scribbling calculations on their papers. Finally, all of them have circled answers on their papers.

"So?" I ask. "What are your answers?" Two of the kids reveal completely different numbers. The third one just shakes his head, trying not to laugh. "It's a hole. There's no dirt in a hole. That was a shuck-faced thing to do, by the way."

I can't help but laugh at that. It's not anywhere near threatening when he's a head and a half shorter than me. "I like you, shank." And I really do like this kid. He's got heart. "What's your name?"

"Stephen."

"How long have you been here?"

"2 months." Not long, but what could I do? I said I wanted the best, and that's what I got.

"Ok. Stephen is our new Runner. You other two, great job. Maybe next time," I say. God forbid there be a next time.

"When do we start?" he asks.

Like I said, the kid was a genius. I honestly thought he would be the one to get us out. And I genuinely cared for him, tried my best to keep him safe. Someone, maybe Alby, started calling him my younger brother, and it stuck. If it weren't for the fact that I was the only one with an accent, it could've been true. I took charge of his training the day after testing. I kept him running with me as long as I could until I finally had to let him take over his own section. Everything seemed to be going well; we went weeks with no injuries and we were testing new patterns every few days. None of them worked, but everyone was confident we were getting close. And then, naturally, everything went horribly shucking wrong.

One day, I was late getting out of the Maze, making it back only five minutes before the walls shut. I rush into the map room and count off the other Runners, then freeze. I count one more time. A familiar sandy head is missing. I race out of the Map Room, pushing Minho aside as he tries to grab my arm. I am not losing another Runner to the bloody shucking Maze and I sure as hell am not losing Stephen. He's the closest thing to family I have in this place. I shove through the Gladers. I have to reach the West door in time. My heart is beating a million miles an hour, and I must look insane to anyone who sees me.

I catch the slightest flicker of movement down the passageway. _Thank God,_ I think. I start to run out into the Maze. As we get closer, I see that it's actually two figures, an unconscious Gally being dragged by Stephen. My breath catches in my throat. They're covered in blood. I can't tell which one of them the crimson is spreading from, but it's everywhere.

"Stephen!" I yell. "What happened?"

His breathing is labored, and his words sound strained when he answers. "Gally...Grievers stung him...I'm not stung, but..."

And then he turns just a little, and I can see the hideous wounds on his back, and one awful scrape on the side of his head_. No,_ I think, _no, this wasn't shucking supposed to happen._ I yell back down the passage, back into the Glade. I'm dragging them both now; Stephen can barely stay on his feet. We won't make it before the bloody doors close. Minho must have followed me out of the Map Room, because he comes charging into the Maze.

"Grab Gally!" I shout, for once glad he never listens to me. I pick up Stephen, he gets ahold of Gally, and we start to run. Suddenly, the familiar crashing and groaning noise of the closing walls begins. We're sprinting for our lives now, slipping through the doors with only inches to spare.

Someone calls the Med-jacks. We help them maneuver both boys-now both unconscious-into the Homestead. One administers Grief Serum to Gally, and the other starts cleaning Stephen's cuts. It doesn't look good for either one of them. Gally will undergo the Changing, and Stephen had lost so much blood, and the cuts were so deep-**no**. He would make it.

I don't know how long I stand there before I'm told to leave. They're right, I guess. I need to go back to the other Runners. I'm still the Keeper, I still have a job to do. Even if my almost-brother is dying. Shuck it. I really need to slim it and stop thinking that. He had to make it.

It kills me to leave.


	2. Chapter 2

We all map the changes as quickly as we can. None of us can focus. I go back to the main Glade, eat, and try to sleep. I sit against the rough bark of a tree, staring at the sky until faint stars begin to appear.

_Gally._ That shuck-faced klunkhead. He'd gone into the Maze, thought he'd seen something, Nick had said. Chances are it was nothing we hadn't noticed a million times before. Stephen had found the slinthead being attacked by a Griever, and from what it looked like, had tried to fight it off long enough to get Gally out. _You crazy shank,_ I think. _What were you doing?_ I don't even know which of them I meant.

I'm still wide awake at one in the morning when Clint finds me.

His voice shakes a little. "You probably want to come with me." My blood freezes in my veins. I scramble to get my feet under me and start to run for the Homestead, leaping over sleeping figures, not much caring if I step on any of them. Clint, with his shorter legs, can't keep up, and I'm halfway up the stairs before he can even make it to the house.

Jeff blocks the door. "Gally's about to go through the Changing, but that's not why I called you in here." He opens the door and walks over to Stephen, who's lying on his front, breathing shallowly. "He's getting worse. We've tried everything but this cut-" he pointed to one on his back-"won't stop bleeding. We're afraid it might have severed something important." Clint has slipped past me and is leaning over him, pressing an already blood-soaked rag to the cut. I take two steps and sink to my knees next to the cot.

"Are you sure there's nothing else you can do?" I'm practically begging now.

"We've done everything we can remember, but it's so deep that nothing's working." His gaze drops to the floor. "I'm sorry, Newt. We're still trying, but..." He trails off.

I gently run my hand through the unconscious boy's sandy hair, streaked with red from the scrape on his temple.

"I'm so sorry, Stephen," I whisper. "I hoped this wouldn't happen. I tried. I'm sorry." His chest is still rising and falling, but his breathing is slowing. There's nothing I can do. It's inevitable now. I will lose him, my almost-brother, the one I promised myself I would get out of here.

As I've given up, he opens his dark brown eyes one more time.

"Newt?" He asks, in barely more than a whisper. "It's not your fault. And," he pauses to take a shuddering breath, "you have to make it out. I feel like I was so close, but I don't know how to do it." His voice fades out on the last word. As he closes his eyes one last time, something shatters in me. Hope, definitely, and maybe a bit of sanity as well.

Because the next day, I tried to kill myself.

I didn't think any of us would survive to escape anymore. I was sure that all of us would stay there until we died. But this would be my last time in the Maze. It would claim me, just as it had taken too many others. Like it had taken Stephen. I'd never realized just how much I cared until he was gone and I was lost. Sure, there were others I cared about, friends, but he had felt like a link to my past, almost-a link to home.

There were other things wrong, too. I was useless. If anyone was going to get us out, it wasn't going to be me. And every time a new Greenie came up in the box, I was afraid he would be the next poor shank to die. Gally's bloody idiotic stunt, ending with one killed, one stung, had been the last straw. I was going crazy, and I was done. I couldn't do this anymore.

The next day in the Maze, my mind is made up. I go through the motions of my regular job, subconsciously tracking changes in the walls, but I don't really care. I just need something to do until the end of the day. That's what I've decided. I will wait until right before the doors close. No one will be able to find me in time, but it won't be so late that the bloody Grievers get me. I want to die, but not like that.

I think (hope, as bloody awful as it sounds) I'll be killed on impact, but just in case, I don't want any of my friends to find me. They don't deserve that, if they ever cared.

It scares me how much I planned this out. But I'm done. I can't let myself care.

I climb up the wall, and jump. There's no more thought than that, because if I think, I might fail.

I fail anyway. I hit the ground, and I'm not dead. All I know is pain. Everything hurts and I'm bleeding and broken and still alive.

I turn my head just far enough to look at my watch. Eight minutes until the doors close. I lay back. My head throbs, my ribs ache, and there's a constant stabbing pain in my leg. When I open my eyes again, everything is becoming blurry. Will I die before the walls close, or will I have to wait for the Grievers to find me? I blink one more time. I must be hallucinating seeing whatever people about to die see, because I swear Alby is in front of me.

"No," I croak out. "Leave me here."

"What the-never mind. I'm getting you out of here."

He grabs my arms, yelling something I can't make out through the haze taking over my brain. Another figure appears. I try to protest but I'm fading. _Is this what death is like?_ I think, right before I black out.

Obviously I survived, but I'm stuck with this bloody limp. I had to turn over my Keeper job to Minho. Honestly, that wasn't too hard. I never wanted to set foot in the shucking Maze again. I became a sort of assistant leader, really just doing whatever needed to get done.

I'm still not sure how Alby found me. When I asked, he said he had noticed something wrong, and when I didn't come back he was worried. It's just a miracle he didn't get lost. He never asked what happened out there, either. Maybe he knew, maybe not.

So as I hope you see from all of that, there's a perfectly good reason I hate Gally. Bloody slinthead doesn't remember most of it, and I don't plan on telling him. I should, but I can't. It hurts too much to talk about him. All I can do is wait for it to come back and bite me.


End file.
